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Battery life on new MacBook Air

lyngo

lyngo

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 10, 2007
879
1,534
Hi there, I recently purchased a 2013 11" MacBook Air with 256GB of hard drive space. I have cycled the battery as one is suppose to on a brand new machine. My question is a real simple one... The first road of battery depletion and recharge was fairly quick probably because of indexing and what not, but the battery seems to be draining really quick.

At 100% today it only reads that I have about four hours of battery life left. What gives with this? Does the battery life improve a little bit with initial usage? I don't know much about the way these batteries work and operate and maybe someone can give me a quick rundown. I don't need instructions in how to run through a full cycle of battery life on the Mac, only need to understand how these batteries function and their efficiencies.

Jay
 
lyngo said:
Hi there, I recently purchased a 2013 11" MacBook Air with 256GB of hard drive space. I have cycled the battery as one is suppose to on a brand new machine. My question is a real simple one... The first road of battery depletion and recharge was fairly quick probably because of indexing and what not, but the battery seems to be draining really quick.

At 100% today it only reads that I have about four hours of battery life left. What gives with this? Does the battery life improve a little bit with initial usage? I don't know much about the way these batteries work and operate and maybe someone can give me a quick rundown. I don't need instructions in how to run through a full cycle of battery life on the Mac, only need to understand how these batteries function and their efficiencies.

Jay
Click to expand...

The four hours fluctuates up and down. Mine ranges from 4 hours to 12 hours for a MBA 11 2013. It depends on the tasks that the computer is handling when it gives you an estimate of the remaining battery life. Do not worry too much about this. Just enjoy your computer.
 
polee said:
The four hours fluctuates up and down. Mine ranges from 4 hours to 12 hours for a MBA 11 2013. It depends on the tasks that the computer is handling when it gives you an estimate of the remaining battery life. Do not worry too much about this. Just enjoy your computer.
Click to expand...

Great explanation.

Coming from Windows, I was also a bit concerned when I saw 4-5 hour estimates. But the MBA lasted 13 hours on a full charge with low use (word processing, 2-3 Safari tabs). The battery will not let you down.
 
My 2013 13" MBA only returns about 20% more run time than my equally configured 2012. Upon contacting Apple they requested I show it to a genius for testing. He ran some tests and replaced it. The new one is much better, nearly double the life of the first.
 
chabig said:
Your battery stores a finite amount of energy. The time remaining is just an estimate, which can be improved by calibrating your battery.
Click to expand...

The built-in batteries in the newer Mac unibody notebooks come pre-calibrated and do not require regular calibration like the removable batteries in older Apple notebooks.

The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
 
my 13" has better battery life than an iPad. It easily lasts multiple days between charges with my use, most computers I would have to charge every day so I would say the combo of less sleep energy usage and less awake energy usage easily doubles battery life while on and makes an even bigger difference when using the computer normally with sleep and awake cycles
 
Mines 7 hrs (not that it's lasted that long yet, I have used it for about 5 hrs and got it down to almost dead). 13 inch i7. 11 has a smaller capacity.

Anyone know how to track exact uptime? Rather than "well I started using it about 10. Stopped for an hourish" etc
 
rochow said:
Mines 7 hrs (not that it's lasted that long yet, I have used it for about 5 hrs and got it down to almost dead). 13 inch i7. 11 has a smaller capacity.

Anyone know how to track exact uptime? Rather than "well I started using it about 10. Stopped for an hourish" etc
Click to expand...

I actually found an app on the app store that tracks uptime. Its called Battery Logger. It isn't free but I got a $100 gift card as part of my mac purchase so I didn't mind. I'm using it now. It records both time awake and asleep. Right now it says that my MBA (13" version) has been awake for 4hrs and 42min and I'm at 71% battery.

If you are having issues with battery check your cpu usage. It should be around 95% idle most of the time. Anything less and you'll see the battery life impact. I also find that dimming the display has a rather dramatic impact on battery life. I get eye strain easily from bright lights so I always put my display as low as is comfortable. Right now I'm at 6 clicks from the bottom but I'm also inside and not near a window.
 
Still skeptical

Just a quick update: I have been using my machine for the past few days and getting right around 5-6 hours with screen at about half brightness and mostly using it for surfing around the internet, doing emails, facebook, and writing a couple of documents on Pages.

Even right now, it says that I will have 2:57 time left on the battery with 48% remaining. This machine is about a week and a half old. Is this normal? I mean, Apple mentions that on the 11" new model that it will get up to 9 hours. I haven't even seen this as I said before my average is about 6 hours. I know surfing around does take battery usage, but I am still wondering if I am not getting the appropriate time out of this for myself.

- Jay
 
rochow said:
Mines 7 hrs (not that it's lasted that long yet, I have used it for about 5 hrs and got it down to almost dead). 13 inch i7. 11 has a smaller capacity.

Anyone know how to track exact uptime? Rather than "well I started using it about 10. Stopped for an hourish" etc
Click to expand...

how about one of these?
11_22_4_web.jpg
 
lyngo said:
Just a quick update: I have been using my machine for the past few days and getting right around 5-6 hours with screen at about half brightness and mostly using it for surfing around the internet, doing emails, facebook, and writing a couple of documents on Pages.

Even right now, it says that I will have 2:57 time left on the battery with 48% remaining. This machine is about a week and a half old. Is this normal? I mean, Apple mentions that on the 11" new model that it will get up to 9 hours. I haven't even seen this as I said before my average is about 6 hours. I know surfing around does take battery usage, but I am still wondering if I am not getting the appropriate time out of this for myself.

- Jay
Click to expand...

One thing not mentioned yet...uninstall Flash (if it's there)!
 
lyngo said:
Just a quick update: I have been using my machine for the past few days and getting right around 5-6 hours with screen at about half brightness and mostly using it for surfing around the internet, doing emails, facebook, and writing a couple of documents on Pages.

Even right now, it says that I will have 2:57 time left on the battery with 48% remaining. This machine is about a week and a half old. Is this normal? I mean, Apple mentions that on the 11" new model that it will get up to 9 hours. I haven't even seen this as I said before my average is about 6 hours. I know surfing around does take battery usage, but I am still wondering if I am not getting the appropriate time out of this for myself.

- Jay
Click to expand...

This scares me. I'm considering getting a new MBA too, and I would use it almost exactly as you describe. To me, what you describe, is very light usage and should be near the claimed battery life. I mean, no video watching, no encoding, no gaming, if thats not light usage what is?

Either something is wrong with your machine, or what some people call "light usage" means something very different than what it means to me. I hope you get it sorted out, and keep this thread updated please.
 
chabig said:
One thing not mentioned yet...uninstall Flash (if it's there)!
Click to expand...

I do have flash, but it is not actively running as I am not watching any videos. Could this be the cause of it? Does flash run in the background even though it isn't suppose to?

I mean, for real, what are people getting in terms of real life time with one battery charge? I am really thinking about taking this back and just waiting for an rMBP update. I don't know at this point. I like the 11" portability.

- Jay
 
lyngo said:
I do have flash, but it is not actively running as I am not watching any videos. Could this be the cause of it? Does flash run in the background even though it isn't suppose to?

I mean, for real, what are people getting in terms of real life time with one battery charge? I am really thinking about taking this back and just waiting for an rMBP update. I don't know at this point. I like the 11" portability.

- Jay
Click to expand...

i'm getting 7 hours no problem on my 11.
 
lyngo said:
Just a quick update: I have been using my machine for the past few days and getting right around 5-6 hours with screen at about half brightness and mostly using it for surfing around the internet, doing emails, facebook, and writing a couple of documents on Pages.

Even right now, it says that I will have 2:57 time left on the battery with 48% remaining. This machine is about a week and a half old. Is this normal? I mean, Apple mentions that on the 11" new model that it will get up to 9 hours. I haven't even seen this as I said before my average is about 6 hours. I know surfing around does take battery usage, but I am still wondering if I am not getting the appropriate time out of this for myself.

- Jay
Click to expand...

try resetting the SMC - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
 
lyngo said:
I do have flash, but it is not actively running as I am not watching any videos. Could this be the cause of it? Does flash run in the background even though it isn't suppose to?
Click to expand...
Simply having flash installed isn't going to make a big impact on battery life unless you're actively viewing flash content. You can also restrict what/content place when you visit websites by using ClickToFlash. There are many factors that impact your battery life. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details, including tips on how to maximize your battery life.
​
The link below should answer most, if not all, of your battery/charging questions. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
 
I'm only a week into my new 13 inch model and haven't seen anywhere near 12 hours of battery life out of it. More like 9ish, which is still good.
 
Depending on what I'm doing, and on the screen brightness, I get 5-8 hours no problem. I do find the estimate occasionally jumps from 30 minutes to the 8-minute warning, usually when Word and Safari and going.
2012 11-inch.
 
Macbook Air 13

On my machine (i5/8/256) I get +14 hrs (light work). Battery with 3 cycles, capacity 104% (!) ~7500 mAh.

Light work: Terminal, Textwrangler, mail, Safari (+10 tabs open, no flash - have it only in chrome browser), Word, Excel, Evernote, Scrivener.

Screen brightness in auto mode.

Power consumption usually about 3 - 4 W. CPU temp 28 C (22 ambient).
 
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